Adam Scott takes tiny course to the world

Adam Scott takes tiny course to the world

Adam Scott came out of golfing isolation on Friday, not for a drive down Magnolia Lane at Augusta but to show off tiny Maleny Golf Club to the world.

For sports fans starved of live sport, the champion golfer's own idea to "broadcast" his fun nine-hole match with club pro Wayne Perske on Instagram Live (@adamscottofficial) from 8am was lapped up like the Masters.

The livestream was eye-popping exposure for a club largely run by volunteers and manager-pro Perske amid the beauty of rolling fairways, gums, boxwoods and beech trees in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Juniors can still play 18 holes for $5 and a lucky few enjoyed the prized treat of playing with Scott when he meandered through a few extra holes after a surprise visit on Tuesday.

"That's the type of bloke Adam is ... a humble guy playing golf with some lucky kids and now giving our club some brilliant exposure across Australia and the world," said Perske, who won a pro event in Japan in 2006.

"When you have the 2013 Masters champion praising volunteers for the job they've done building and maintaining our little course, that goodwill is really giving back to the game.

"We'll have a chat on course about how far Maleny Golf Club has come and what Scotty is doing in isolation ... just a relaxed nine holes and maybe a $5 bet on one hole."

With a laugh, Perske added: "Scotty flew it over the back of the 10th green the other day with driver and that's 330m away so he was showing off."

Former US Masters winner and PGA Tour pro Adam Scott dropped in to Maleny Golf Club last week to play with friend and club manager Wayne Perske. Perske's son, 13 year old, Billy is also pictured.

The energetic Perske, 45, and Scott knew each other from amateur golf days in the late 1990s but a link as strong is with Perske's artist wife Vanessa.

As Vanessa Spragge, she captained a Queensland schoolgirls' golf team at the same time that Scott did the schoolboys' team.

That connection led to Scott sitting for a wonderful portrait which became a 2014 Archibald Prize entry ... the golfer in the fabled Masters green jacket and wearing Aussie flag board shorts.

Scott has a beachside home on the Sunshine Coast which has been his family base during isolation with wife Marie and their two kids.

Maleny only went from 12 holes to a full 18 in February. Surprise, surprise ... the decorated visitor is already the course record-holder with a six-under-par 62 and that round started with a double bogey.

Adam Scott and Wayne Perske

There was no silverware on Friday or any suggestion that "Adam v Wayne" will be akin to Tiger Woods v Phil Mickelson for $12 million in Las Vegas in 2018.

It's for fun and another sign of the good bloke aura that Scott radiates so naturally.

Under the strict restrictions for golf during the coronavirus crisis, there's no gallery, one player per golf cart, only a group of two, cut-down pool noodles filling Maleny's holes and no license for a cold beer after the round to prevent milling around.

The shutdown of tournament golf has forced the world No.6 to reshape his 2020 golf schedule with a mid-June restart in the US and new dates for the PGA (August 6-9), US Open (September 17-20) and the Masters (November 12-15).

Leading women's golfer Hannah Green has just discovered that the title defence of her Women's PGA Championship has been shifted from June to October 8-11.